YouTube Atherectomy Videos: What Industry is Telling Us About this Endovascular Procedure

BACKGROUND: Patients are turning to the Internet and YouTube for information about their providers, disease states and potential interventions. Endovascular atherectomy is a common procedure undertaken in the treatment of peripheral vascular disease especially in outpatient treatment centers despite its cost. Little is known how this procedure is portrayed in online video content. We set forth to search YouTube to gain insight to how industry and non-industry portrays this endovascular technology. METHODS: YouTube (www.youtube.com) website was accessed in July 2017 with a cleared cached web browser for the key search word “atherectomy”. The top 100 videos with greater than 100 views were examined. All results were separated into two categories - industry (I) or non-industry (NI) sources. The duration of video, age of video, total video views, academic information, cost information and if outpatient treatment center focused care were also collected. RESULTS: A total of 100 videos were examined. The videos were separated into two groups: Industry (n=20) and Non-Industry (n=80). Videos from Industry and Non-Industry were similar in content in terms of duration (4.8 ± 4.5 and 5.6 ± 4.4 minutes), creation time (3.3 ± 2.2 and 3.4 ± 1.9 years), and total views (7386 ± 14,593 and 5560 ± 13,181). Proportions of videos from each group that contained educational content were also similar (70% and 70%). However, only 7% (n=7) of the videos reference the procedure being linked to care in outpatient treatment center. Only 3% (n=3) mentioned the cost of the procedure. All of these videos from each of these categories were from non-industry sources. Conclusion: In our sampling of “Atherectomy” YouTube videos, we find similar video content in terms of duration, creation time, total views and educational content. Interestingly, the cost and its association with outpatient treatment labs is mentioned in only a minority of the videos and only from non-industry sources. These data should inform the vascular surgery community the lack of public understanding of this endovascular technology as evidenced in YouTube videos